Is celery worth it?

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i had a decent year a couple years ago with celery. had i done it this year in my 'moist' garden area i would have another good year.

 

[digitS']

i had a decent year a couple years ago with celery. had i done it this year in my 'moist' garden area i would have another good year.

I like that attitude. It would have been great! It creates this difficult to resist urge to try it the next time around.

I stopped blanching the stalks as they grew during the mid summer. Ooops! I forgot..

Lots and lots of good information, Barefoot'! But, you should have been around in Summer. We could have helped you remember .

It is one of the things I appreciate about the forum. I'm always thinking about where i am in the gardening process so that I can share. Helping others realize possibilities and keep track - helps ME, enormously! Painless and fun, too.

I hope the celery base/roots will survive the winter and start to grow in the coming spring. We shall see.. Fingers crossed.

And, there is another thing! I get a little adventuresome. Without the forum I'd probably wind down to a half dozen boring varieties and the same approach, year after year after year after ...

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Great, informative post, @barefootgardener!
@digitS', you are showing that gardeners are not just eternally optimistic, but also adventurous!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

View attachment 9215
See my celeriac between the rows of Scotch kale?

Not the best picture I snapped yesterday but more attractive than the roots in this TEG thread on the World's Ugliest Vegetable from a few years ago.

(There is a nice picture of a bowl of soup, however .)

Steve

I never through of planting between the kale.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I grew 2 kinds, Tendercrisp and something else. I started them in the greenhouse. They are all leaves almost. DigitS celeriac looks interesting. I am try that. I have a lot of chopped up Tendercrisp in the freezer. This was my second year and shocked I could grow it. I planted it under an apple tree in an area that got a lot of watering.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

View attachment 9680 View attachment 9682 View attachment 9681 [/ATTACH] View attachment 9684 View attachment 9683 This is my second year growing celery, and it is definitely worth it to me. I grew out Tall Utah Celery, and Chinese Celery, from seed that I started in late winter. I planted the seedlings out in the early spring, in well composted raised beds. I planted each seedling about a foot apart. As the seedlings grew, I would pile soil/straw along the stems. This is called blanching which helps prevent the stalks from turning bitter. I made sure to give them plenty of water. I was so busy with the farm and garden that I stopped blanching the stalks as they grew during the mid summer. Ooops! I forgot..But, the celery stalks grew up and out and helped shade each other for the most part. I would take and cut off a few stalks here and there, as I needed for salads etc.. They tasted crisp, and the stalks that had the most shade tasted a tad sweeter, while a few stalks that were on the outside that had more sun tasted just a bit stronger. The Chinese celery definitely had a stronger flavor..While they sprawled out a bit, and did not look perfect like store bought, I was still very happy with the results. I use every part of the celery including the stalks, leaves and the seed after the Chinese celery flowered and went to seed. I ground up some of the Chinese Celery seed and stalks/leaves after it dried and turned it into a powder for stir fry, soups and stews etc.. The aroma is amazing, it has a beautiful, strong, fresh celery scent and I already used the celery powder in some potato salad and soups. I think it would be great with a pinch in deviled eggs or scrambled eggs.
Here is what I learned and what I will change and experiment with for next season: Blanch and wrap the stalks with newspaper and twine after the stalks are close to a foot tall. This will help keep the stalks from turning bitter (or just pile some soil or cardboard around the plants. If you plant your celery close enough together, sometimes the inner celery will give enough shade..Plant the seedlings in a very well composted bed that has been amended with lots of well rotted manure. Celery are heavy feeders. Fertilize as needed. Water well all summer, and make sure the planting bed drains well so you don't have to deal with rot and disease. (Keep in mind, the wrapped celery will be a bit lighter in color than celery that is not wrapped. The greener celery will contain more nutrients.)
.
To preserve a fall crop just pull up the whole plant, roots and all, and place in a very deep box with moist sand or clean soil around the roots and store in a cool place, like an unheated basement. The celery should last a few months.
To keep in the refrigerator temporarily: wrap celery in foil, then put in a plastic bag.

When I get busy and I need to have celery close at hand for cooking that week I have picked a whole stalk and placed it in a bucket with cool water touching the bottom base. I bring it inside and put it in a shady cool spot to use as I needed that week. The whole stalk and leaves will stay fresh and green for at least a week this way. I will also freeze the stalks and leaves in quart size or gallon size bags to use in soups, stews and for roasting with meats during the winter.

As an experiment, I will cut some of the celery stalks down to just above the base, leaving the top and the roots, cover well, and mulch the beds deeply with straw. I hope the celery base/roots will survive the winter and start to grow in the coming spring. We shall see.. Fingers crossed.

Tall Utah, that was the other one I grew.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

As an experiment, I will cut some of the celery stalks down to just above the base, leaving the top and the roots, cover well, and mulch the beds deeply with straw. I hope the celery base/roots will survive the winter and start to grow in the coming spring. We shall see.. Fingers crossed.

I cut some of mine and left the roots and the base. They were still alive the other day, as was some of the curly parsley and the Rosemary plant. I should have mulched them. I had no idea they might come back next spring. I think I will anyway mulch them, if I can find them under the snow we are getting right now.

 

[catjac1975]

I forgot about 1 celery plant and it is still alive and flourishing-will use it for Christmas.

 

[digitS']

I didn't know celery was so hardy!

I cut some of mine and left the roots and the base. They were still alive the other day, as was some of the curly parsley and the Rosemary plant. I should have mulched them. I had no idea they might come back next spring. I think I will anyway mulch them, if I can find them under the snow we are getting right now.

I have just been out "mulching" my rose bushes with snow. Many roses are harder than most garden veggies, but still ... By the way, that rambling rose that can cover my driveway gate with pink beauty but which I nearly killed putting in a new fencepost last spring - it grew better in 2015 than any of the 20 years previous! It has not had anything other than a snow mulch.

Now, don't count on this but I've been told that if you bury a thermometer under several feet of snow, it will stay right near 32°F no matter what the air temperature above it.

The person telling me this considers snow a very good insulator. If it works like that when it is below 0°, it must be. You know, 3 or 4 feet down in the earth, it's a steady 55° or whatever, year around. Okay, the soil surface may be frozen but a certain amount of that 55° is radiating up ... We, in the north, do know that without snow cover - frost just keeps working its way down, during real cold weather.

You see, Sprig' doesn't really need that grow room in his basement. Just snow ...

I never through of planting between the kale.

Very few of my veggie garden beds are given to one crop. It isn't so much that I believe in companion planting, it's that I'm enlisting the plants to combat the weeds!

I do believe that plant neighbors may exist in some cases where one species benefits while another isn't greatly inconvenienced.

Steve

 

[catjac1975]

I forgot about 1 celery plant and it is still alive and flourishing-will use it for Christmas.

I didn't know it was hardy either. We hAVE BEEN INTO THE 20'S BRIEFLY, SO IT IS AN unusually warm fall and winter.